


Secrets

by identity



Series: my sweet sherlock [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Eating Disorders, Established Relationship, M/M, Non-Sexual Age Play, Past Child Abuse, Self-Harm
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-15
Updated: 2021-02-22
Packaged: 2021-03-16 05:00:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29448186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/identity/pseuds/identity
Summary: I close my eyes and drift in a dreamscape of tea and gunpowder and mint toothpaste.“I wish you’d tell me more about what’s bothering you, sweetheart,” John says. His chest rumbles when he speaks.I shake my head, not sure why I keep secrets, just that I have to. I kiss his shoulder in apology.Sherlock and John work through their relationship. Sherlock deals with an eating disorder, and several other secrets.Directly follows "My Sweet Sherlock"
Relationships: Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Series: my sweet sherlock [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2163063
Comments: 6
Kudos: 35





	1. one day at a time

**Author's Note:**

> Directly follows "My Sweet Sherlock"

John stirred. The bedroom had gone dark with night. Streetlamps glowed softly through the curtains.

His sweet boy was curled up against his chest, still sleeping. John stroked his hair and placed Bee back in his arms. He was glad Sherlock had liked his present so much. He thought about planning a trip to an apiary. He loved Sherlock so much.

Sighing, John quietly slid out of bed, tucking the covers around Sherlock. He headed to the kitchen, taking note of the experiment Sherlock had left on the table, a notebook laying open to a page of notes scribbled in a spiky, hurried hand. John considered the notes, stroking the page. Sherlock was so smart, so exacting, so precise and clear-cut.

Time for a bit of dinner. What would Sherlock be able to eat? Something very gentle. Perhaps some potatoes, perhaps some salmon. Pistachios, maybe. John wanted to get something with calories in his boy.

He stared at the chart on the fridge. It read, “Sherlock must eat at least 2 meals per day!” in purple crayon. He touched the Winnie the Pooh stickers noting which days Sherlock had succeeded. He hadn’t succeeded very often.

It wasn’t just the meal skipping John was worried about. It was the number of calories Sherlock managed in general. Lately, it had been too few, and Sherlock, already slim, had lost a bit too much weight.

He fixed tea and sat at the table, flipping through a medical journal. He smiled at an article on the effects of arsenic on nail health, bookmarking it for Sherlock.

221B felt small fragile, the blue kitchen light pressing back against the dark engulfing night. The heat radiating from his mug warmed his fingers and he clutched it, huddling into the soft scent of milk and chai.

Alright, then. He took two salmon fillets out from the freezer and began steaming them. A bowl of pistachios. He began to boil the potatoes for the mash.

“John.”

John jumped at the low voice. Sherlock had crept down and was standing at the kitchen entrance, clutching a tartan blanket around his shoulders like a shroud.

“You’re up?” he asked.

“Obviously,” Sherlock replied.

John grinned. “Shut it, you know what I meant.”

“I’ve slept enough,” Sherlock said. “…And.” He hesitated. “I can’t eat that.”

John considered the thin man before him. “All right. But I want you to try to eat something for dinner. You’ve only had two pancakes today.”

“Yes,” Sherlock huffed. “Plus the butter and the honey you slathered all over them! Those pancakes must have been a thousand calories!”

“Still not enough for a six-foot man.”

Sherlock’s mouth tightened. “Fine,” he said. “I’ll cook if you insist on making us eat.”

John sighed. “Are you doing all right? I’ve noticed, you know.”

“I’m fine,” Sherlock said. To his credit, he didn’t deny that there was anything to notice.

Sherlock removed the tartan blanket from his shoulders and draped it on the back of a chair. John tried not to stare at the way Sherlock’s hip bones were visible through his low-slung pajama bottoms. He knew bringing it up wouldn’t do any good. Especially not now that Sherlock seemed to be very adult. The sharpness had returned.

Instead of potatoes, Sherlock had gotten them each a slice of toast. That was fine with John, if that was what Sherlock could manage. Sherlock started to pick at the salmon, watching it flake apart at the tines of his fork. He pushed it away.

“I can’t eat this,” he declared.

John wasn’t surprised. “Why not?”

Sherlock struggled with cracking open a pistachio. “It’s going to make my stomach extend,” he whispered frantically, “I can’t chew it. I can’t digest it. My stomach already feels large. It’s huge.”

“Okay,” John said soothingly, placing a hand on Sherlock’s. “Can you try some toast?”

Sherlock stared at the toast with contempt, then reached down. The toast felt spongey in his hands. His fingertips pressed into it. Before he knew it, he had ripped it to shreds.

He got up, pacing the kitchen. He picked at the bandage John had placed over his self-harm injury. Then he suddenly deflated.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “This was easier when I lived alone.”

“Don’t be sorry,” John said. “I’m glad someone is looking after you now.”

“I’m not,” Sherlock said. “Not if you have to witness this. It’s distressing for you.”

“Maybe, but only because I love you,” John said.

Sherlock grimaced. “I’m sorry,” he said again.

John watched the thin man cross to the fridge and take out a jar of peanut butter.

“Two spoons,” Sherlock said. “Then I’m done.”

“Maybe some fruit with it?” John suggested solicitously.

“We’ll see,” Sherlock said.

John watched his sweetheart lean against the sink and carefully spoon out and flatten two tablespoons of peanut butter. Sherlock licked the peanut butter slowly, as if taking small bites would make more sense to make up for how calorific the food was.

Then he was done. He threw the spoon into the sink, jammed the peanut butter back in the fridge, and moaned. He pulled at his hair, sinking onto the sofa.

John sighed, packing the salmon and toast into the fridge. “Come here,” he whispered. And he swooped down and gathered his sweet man into his arms.

Sherlock sighed into John’s shoulder.

“It’s been a hard month, hasn’t it,” John whispered. He stroked his sweet Sherlock’s back.

“I feel like passing out just walking through the Yard,” Sherlock admitted.

John wasn’t surprised at this admission. Frankly he was astounded that Sherlock could physically sustain any of his work. “What’s stopping you from eating, sweetheart?”

Sherlock relaxed even further into the words, sagging against John’s shoulder. “Mm. Don’t know.”

“It doesn’t feel good?” John prodded.

“I can feel the food like congealed blood in my veins. Sloshing about. Just coagulating.”

“Hmmm.”

Then Sherlock sighed. “Mycroft wants me to attend Mummy’s birthday next week.”

John looked up at Sherlock in surprise. “I didn’t know she was still alive.”

“I generally pretend she isn’t,” Sherlock said.

John smiled. “What’s she like? I know a bit about your dad—” Sherlock shuddered—“but you never mentioned your mum, so I assumed…”

“She’s. Overbearing,” Sherlock began. “Um. You know, very… she wasn’t always like this. Early on, she was just as bad as he was.”

John frowned. If Sherlock still couldn’t put his experiences into words… He rubbed Sherlock’s back encouragingly. “So, are you going?”

Sherlock snorted. “Not if I can help it. But Mycroft will probably send some of his minions to take me away again.”

“Do you usually go to her birthday?”

“Mm. No. But it’s her seventieth. And Mycroft says she’s expecting me.”

“What will her party be like?”

“Oh, probably… I don’t know. Tea and cake. A game of cricket on the lawn. Whatever out of touch old ladies do.”

“If Mycroft’s involved, it’s probably going to be posh,” John agreed.

“If I have to go, will you come with me?”

John looked down at his love, who was looking very shy. “Of course, I’ll come!” he said. “I’ll hold your hand through the whole thing.”

Sherlock smiled a bit at that, squeezing John’s hand. “It’s at the old house. I can’t believe she’s still living there.”

John wanted to ask if Sherlock’s father had beaten Sherlock’s mother, too. What Mycroft’s involvement was. The questions wanted to tumble off his tongue. But he bit his lip. Instead, he said, “It must have been weighing on you.”

“Yes,” his sweet love admitted. “Mycroft has been pestering me.”

“I can imagine he has,” John said wryly. “He has a way of doing that.”

Sherlock laughed. “Thank you,” he whispered. “For, you know.”

“Anytime,” John smiled. “I love you.”

“You too,” Sherlock smiled shyly and kissed his cheek. “Daddy.”

John squeezed his love’s hand. They would take it one day at a time.


	2. secrets

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock's POV

I wake up hazily. I know almost immediately deep in my body that it is afternoon and John is at work. Before leaving, he had woken me up and kissed me goodbye.

I don’t ever want him to know this, but sometimes I love it when he is out. Certainly not a few days ago, when I all but had a meltdown when I woke without John in the flat (for which I am still ashamed). But for all the security and safety John has offered—the sense of order I get from knowing I belong by his side—I still like to be alone sometimes. It reminds me of when I was younger and had the freedom to engage in less healthy activities.

I don’t have a case today. In fact, it’s been several weeks. The absence of cases is almost suspiciously timed around my mother’s birthday and I make a note to heckle Mycroft about this. It is certainly his doing.

I head to the bathroom where I use the toilet and brush my teeth. I strip out of my pajamas and feel the bite of the February air. A shock to the system is always good, although lately I have been feeling almost feverish, my muscles sore and weak. It is probably due to my eating habits lately—I know John is worried. I know I have lost weight. But I feel enormous. Sluggish in my body.

I step on the scale I keep hidden from him and note my weight in my log. Down marginally from yesterday. I know I am underweight according to the BMI. I’ve been here before. The problem is that when I get here, I start having strange thoughts. Thoughts that say that I’m not underweight at all, and that normal people are simply all obese. I start looking at Molly, John, Lestrade, who are all at normal weights, and feel that they are huge. All the extra flesh that clings to their limbs is unnecessary, frivolous.

And so I believe I have more to lose.

The preoccupation with thinness in times of stress is something that confuses even me. I understand that in some ways I am certainly vain, but I don’t think I’m doing this because of my body image. It partly is, I suppose, but I do it chiefly for the control. The pure feeling of a dry, empty body. Feeling so light I could fly away. It’s a secret I can keep to myself. I use it as a barrier I sit behind and survey others from.

I’m different and this proves it.

I move to the mirror and look at the thin man in it. I turn, checking the way my hipbones jut out. The joint where my femur attaches to my hipbone rolls visibly when I walk. My collarbones and ribs are visible too. I look like a ghost. A ghost with hollow eyes and scars that climb up my body like ladders.

I dress again, layering with a soft silk robe. Feeling unhappiness rising in me, I ring Lestrade.

He picks up on the fifth ring, meaning that he doesn’t feel so undefeated yet that he feels compelled to answer me. “Yes?” he says distractedly.

“Lestrade,” I say, irritated already. “Your case is dragging on. Let me on.”

“Sherlock, we’ve got it,” Lestrade chuckles down the line. He sounds unjustifiably arrogant. I can almost smell the coffee and donuts. “And it’s only been a week.”

“A week until the murderer targets another girl,” I reply coolly.

Lestrade chuckles again, and it reminds me so much of my brother that I impulsively snap, “Did Mycroft put you up to this?”

“No, why would he?” Lestrade, damn him, sounds genuinely confused. Then he sounds downright chummy: “How is Mycroft by the way?”

“How should I know?” I grumble.

“Any reason why Mycroft might be taking you off cases?” Lestrade says; as always, he is sharp when it is inconvenient for me.

“No,” I snap.

“Well, watch it,” Lestrade says. “You know I can’t have you consulting if you’re not sober.”

I huff and hang up. Sometimes my past really inhibits me. People check up on me when I don’t want them to. But I guess whatever haunted me back then still sits low in my belly and slashes hot at my skin. It’s not fully in the past. I glance at the mirror again, checking to see the sharpness of my bones pushing against my skin.

I check on my experiments and water the plants. This takes about an hour. I finish up a blog post on identifying marks on the nails of murder victims. Then I decide to check up on a case that I have not yet officially taken.

It’s the case of a young girl around 8 years old named Matilda Rabbit, who emailed me about her father. She said that her father has been disappearing at strange times during the night and she only knows this because her family dog, Ezra, has been barking as her father leaves and returns.

Matilda must have been peering out the window at the dead of night. I know what it’s like to stand on tip toes staring out a window checking to see if the ghost of a parent has gone for good. Hoping for and fearing their return. So I know how discomfited Matilda must be.

Sometimes I think I do the Work to wear myself down to the bone, to be consumed. If I did not give it my all, I know I would go back to heroin. I find work that cuts at me, bit by bit, until I’m raw. People might call this compassion—but I don’t know that it is. It is actually that I have experienced more unpleasant things than others simply because I’m me. I appear to others as a sociopath, when most of the time I really don’t try to. I have been mistreated—thoroughly—thus I understand the dark parts of human nature—the bullying and ostracizing, the blacklisting and lack of mercy, the crimes and the murders. And these things have marked me.

I choose pain because it has defined my world.

I’ll never tell anyone it hurts.

I dress in my usual suit and coat and head out where I hail a cab to Brixton, where John and I had our first case.

Matilda lives in a small flat house painted a dull grey. The windows look like hooks piercing through a fish’s gaping mouth. I spend some time simply standing at the bus stop across the street, observing the house. It is around 4pm and I know that John will be returning to Baker Street soon. So, I know that Sylvan Rabbit, Matilda’s father, will also be returning home soon.

Sylvan Rabbit arrives in a light blue Honda station wagon. His unremarkable brown hair is balding. He is thin, except for a small potbelly. I note the size and make of the brogues he wears—disturbingly similar to John’s—and the length of his steps. He carries a black canvas shoulder bag. The starch in his lapels and the gel in his har indicates that he works as a hotel manager at an upscale place.

The way he reaches for his keys is precise; he barely has to fish in his pocket for them. John will sometimes stand outside our door for at least a few minutes swearing to himself before he can find his key. I hear their dog, Joey, bark. The door opens and Sylvan Rabbit goes inside, but not before carefully wiping his shoes on the doormat.

Their garden has blue hydrangeas. The mulch is dug up in strange patterns. Either Matilda has been playing, or something is amiss indeed. When mulch is dug up so randomly and violently, it does not indicate an affair, it indicates something much more sinister.

I make a mental note to return to observe what happens at night. Matilda helpfully told me that her father only roams at night on Mondays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. Today is Tuesday.

It is now 4:30 and I decide to head home before John can tell I’ve left the flat. I hail a cab and while I’m in it, I think of what to eat.

I know I have to eat. And I will eat. But lately it has been getting harder. My mother—as John knows… and I wish he didn’t—has been on my mind.

I haven’t seen her in almost 10 years. The last time I saw her was when I was in rehab the first time, before the Work. I remember how we parted ways. Back then my father was still alive, and he and my mother came to see me. She always had a way about her that seemed to me like her soul whispered, rather than spoke. She stared at me softly, helplessly, pityingly.

“I don’t know what to do for you,” she whispered. “I don’t!”

“You have been ungrateful your whole life.” My father clenched his jaw. I was too old to hit by then. His fingers were swollen with disease and I could see them balling into fists.

I was inured to these remarks. I let them wash over me and pretended not to hear. I even pretended to fall asleep. I listened to them leave and knew that if I didn’t try to keep in contact, we would never speak again. And that’s what happened.

I let go of my parents. I let them go, even though I knew he would remain hitting her, isolating her.

I wonder if that’s what it was like for Mycroft, when he left my mother and me at home and went to university.

I’m not sentimental, but some things have a way of getting to me. I feel these things in my stomach. A deep feeling of grief stills my stomach. The shame deadens me. And things become too wild for me. I cannot eat, and I also don’t want to eat.

The short list of food that I consume, with minimal ingredients, is easy to count, easy to stay in control of.

John sometimes makes food that I cannot bare to eat. Right now, I cannot stomach salmon, like he made last night. I think I might choke on it. I want only gentle food. Something like sweet pancakes, or bananas in milk. Boxed macaroni cheese. And I can only stomach food once a day.

I will have to eat for John tonight. So, when the cab pulls up to Baker Street, I have dinner planned. It’s better to stay in control of the cooking, if I’m to eat. And, intellectually, I do want to eat, because I know I must.

I change back into my pajamas, so it looks like I stayed home all day, and pad to the kitchen. I make toast and soft-boiled eggs, which I know I will be able to manage. I put a butter dish out, for John’s use, not mine.

Steamed peas are quite gentle. I make some of those too.

I think further since I will have to get quite a lot of calories in this meal to make up for the meals I skipped today. Intellectually, I know I must stop losing weight (although that would put me firmly on the side of survival, and sometimes I would rather feel the pull towards death).

It’s a bit of a gamble, but I take out the sweet vanilla yogurt and the honey. I can have that with a banana and some cinnamon. I can also have some pistachios. The honey and the pistachios are quite high in calories.

And if I still need more, I can get it over with by having a spoonful of peanut butter, which, by the way, has a good amount of protein, fiber, calcium, and potassium.

As I finish setting out the pistachios, I hear John coming up the stairs. I wipe my hands off and go to greet him.

He envelopes me in a great big hug and I feel myself relaxing for what is probably the first time today.

“I made dinner,” I say. John knows what my cooking means and that makes me uncomfortable, so I quip, “Like your housewife, especially since Lestrade won’t have me on any cases.”

“Poor pet,” John says, mercifully avoiding the topic of my cooking. “Lestrade will call you in soon. How was your day?”

“Mm,” I say. “I checked up on the experiments, wrote on the blog.”

“Did you eat?”

“I had toast,” I lie. The truth is that I haven’t had much of an appetite today.

“Still only toast, Sherlock, that’s not enough,” John nags.

Something dark in me rears its head and I tell it to back down.

“I tried,” I say civilly. After all, John has kept his peace on a lot already.

We head to the kitchen where I have dinner set out and I see John take in the safe foods and purse his lips, obviously forcing himself not to say anything.

“It looks nice,” he says.

I roll my eyes. “It’s very simple,” I say.

I take a piece of toast and rip a piece off, dipping it into my egg. I see John watching me, and I wish that I were not so difficult. I wish he felt comfortable approaching me. I wish he did not think that I don’t want his affection when I’m big.

But the truth is, there is something dark in me that snaps if care is given at the wrong time. It’s the darkness my parents saw in me as a child that invited their abuse.

I wish I weren’t such an awkward person!

Just as I think this, John reaches out and touches my hand.

“What’s this?” I mumble awkwardly.

“Nothing,” John smiles. “Just wanted to hold your hand.”

I smile in spite of myself. Something in me wants to give way under the stress of this month. “Of course, you do,” I say, drily, “I am, after all, exeptional.”

John chuckles. “No, you dolt, I’ve had a long day and wanted your company.”

“Tell me all about it,” I say, and I watch John automatically tuck into the food as he launches into his story about a middle-aged man and his gangrenous foot.

While John talks, I am able to eat less observed. I make it through my toast and egg, a small serving of peas, and manage 10 pistachios. Then I spoon out the yogurt slice a banana over the vanilla yogurt. I sprinkle cinnamon and drizzle honey over it. It’s a sweet dessert I like to have from time to time.

I can’t finish it, so instead I focus on John and note that the man with the gangrenous foot fits Sylvan Rabbit’s description. I file this piece of information away to look at later and follow John to the couch where he drapes me across his lap. I huff into his warm belly and again, feel myself relaxing.

John opens up a medical journal and I look at a cold case file, but I am mentally going over Matilda’s case. Hazily, I think up a plan to sneak out of the house when John is sleeping to investigate Mr. Rabbit’s nighttime adventures.

When I’m done with that, I climb into John’s lap and wrap my arms around him and nuzzle into his neck.

“Someone’s feeling cuddly, hm?” he says.

In the beginning, I balked at this treatment. With all my intellect, I surely could not take pleasure from being treated like an infant. But John has a magic about him, something I don’t understand how he does. He makes his words wash over me like I am sinking down into a cloud of comfort. He makes the whole room feel warmer.

I usually feel safe with him. I sigh into his neck. I don’t need to talk. John will take care of everything.

He runs his hands up and down my thighs. I have some self-harm scars on my right thigh. His touch feels soothing. He accepts and acknowledges this part of me.

I close my eyes and drift in a dreamscape of tea and gunpowder and mint toothpaste.

“I wish you’d tell me more about what’s bothering you, sweetheart,” John says. His chest rumbles when he speaks.

I shake my head, not sure why I keep secrets, just that I have to. I kiss his shoulder in apology.

John places little kisses on my cheeks, my eyes, and my nose. It makes me feel small. I drift further.

“Would you like a bath, little one?” John asks.

Yes, I would like that very much.

“All right, then one, two, three—” to my delight I am lifted entirely up off the couch and he carries me to the bathroom.

Daddy starts filling the tub. “Ducks?” he says. He pulls out baby wash and bubbles and a small yellow washcloth.

Yes, I would like ducks.

Daddy takes out my boats to and they float around in the water, which sounds like a waterfall as it fills the tub. Daddy tests the temperature of the water with his hand then he helps me in and it’s soft and lovely

I play with my boats and my ducks. Spish splash, splish splash

Daddy’s hands pour the soap over me and move through my hair

Feels nice

Daddy pours water over my head

The tub is hard against my bottom—Daddy says it’s ‘cause I’ve got a boney bum… Daddy puts a bath pad down and it’s even nicer

It smells like huckleberries and honey…

The tub is nice and warm, blue with huckleberry water

I imagine I’m at sea

Daddy wraps me in a fuzzy towel, hugs me while I’m in it

We go to the bedroom and Daddy cocoons me in blankets

soft

warm

Daddy gives me a bottle of cool sweet milk

yes

this is just what I need

i know ive hurt people

most of the time accidentally

i hurt john and i don’t know how to stop

so i need Daddy to sweep me into his arms

keep me safe

make me his

cause i keep running away and i don’t know why


End file.
